The hacker's mischief-making was double-pronged: affected computers were meant to attack the Microsoft website that offered the free patch on August 16th.
The Labour move - dismissed as "mischief-making" by Lords Leader Lord Strathclyde - was rejected by 202 votes to 169, a government majority of 33, at the end of a half-hour debate.
Conspiracy-minded reformists refer to the Persian verses that relate the endeavours of a Jewish king to sow discord among his Christian subjects, by planting his mischief-making minister among them in the guise of a convert.
Or something that is tying innovators big and small in knots and befits only mischief-makers bent on making money in the courts rather than in laboratories.